“You figure she was having an affair with someone?”
“There’s the reference to what tingles her gonads,” I said. “What would be your guess?”
“Affair,” Brian said. “You think she’s too snooty to have an affair with a plumber?”
“Snooty?” I said.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with snooty?”
“I haven’t heard anyone use that word since my grandmother died.”
“So I’m an old-fashioned guy,” Brian said.
“Well,” I said. “She’s very snooty. But, you know how some women are. If he’s a hunk, the more working class the better.”
“Like me,” Brian said.
It was starting. I knew it would and now it had. I always loved the feeling in my stomach when it started. Even if he wasn’t Richie.
“No need to be so self-effacing,” I said.
“You too snooty to be interested in a cop?”
“You have anyone in mind?” I said.
“I was thinking about me,” Brian said.
“Yes,” I said. “So was I.”
Brian leaned forward and kissed me. I closed my eyes. When I opened them he was off the barstool and standing beside me. Holding the kiss, I slid off my stool and we embraced. The kiss stopped. We leaned back against each other’s arms and looked at each other. Rosie insinuated herself among our ankles and panted up at us.
“I know how she feels,” Brian said.
“Does my breath smell of beef in oyster sauce?” I said.
“And you taste of Gewürztraminer,” Brian said.
“A treat for all the senses,” I said. “Perhaps I should ask Rosie to stay in the bathroom for a little while.”
“Will she yowl?” Brian said.
“No, but I might,” I said.
Chapter 39
The Framingham plumber was the best bet, so I started with him. A Framingham detective with gray hair and sideburns let me into Kevin Humphries’ office in a storefront off Route 126. The detective’s name was Bob Anderson. The office was two rooms. The front room was full of plumbing supplies and tools scattered around a yellow pine desk with a file drawer. The back room had a bed, and a bathroom, which looked as if Kevin had added it recently.
“He was apparently living here after the separation from his wife,” Bob told me.
“Not well,” I said.
“But quiet,” Bob said. “I got seven kids.”
“Well, Kevin won’t be using the place anymore,” I said.
“I know. His wife won’t come near it. Says he was, excuse the language, a rotten prick when he was alive, and dying didn’t change that. So here it sits like he left it, until something happens with his estate.”
I nodded.
“I guess I’ll nose around for a while,” I said.
“I’m supposed to stay here while you do, but I could use some coffee.”
“Go for it. I won’t steal anything.”
“We got a call from a Boston detective.”
“Brian Kelly?”
“Yeah. Area C. Says you’re working with him and he’ll take responsibility for you.”
“Brian’s a sweetie,” I said.
“Yeah,” Bob smiled. “Me, too. I’ll be over there in the coffee shop. Gimme a yell when you’re through.”
When he had left with visions of lemon-frosted scones dancing in his head, I went to the sloppy desk and opened the file drawers and took out the files. They were a series of manila folders with no designation on the tabs. The folders were bent and stained, and the work orders and receipts in them were not arranged in any order that I could recognize. I began to go through them. It was slow work. Many of the work orders were folded over, sometimes two or three times, as if they had been jammed into a shirt pocket. A lot of the paper made no sense to me. It referenced plumbing procedures or tools or supplies that I knew nothing of. But I could read the names on the slips and after an hour and a half, back nearly two years, I found a work order for Patton in South Natick. It appeared to be a matter of installing a full bath downstairs. It was marked paid in full.
Because I’m thorough, I went on back through the rest of Humphries’ files. He kept them going three years back. There was nothing else that told me anything. But Mrs. Patton had agreed that a man should be killed. A man was killed and he had a connection to the Pattons. How big a coincidence was that? I went out of the office and closed the door and walked across the parking lot to the coffee shop. Anderson was having a piece of pie and some coffee at the counter.
“Something to eat?” he said.
I slipped onto a stool beside him.
“Tea,” I said to the counter woman. “With lemon.”
The woman nodded with the hint of contempt that counter people always show when you order tea.
“Maybe,” I said. “Do you have any pictures of the plumber?”
“We got some nice crime scene shots,” Anderson said.
“Swell,” I said. “Always the best kind for identifying somebody.”
“And we blew up a couple photos from his wedding.”
“Can I get those?”
“Sure. What’d you find?”
“He did some plumbing work for a client of mine.”
“You think the client might have had something to do with his death?”
“Maybe.”
“Gimme a name.”
I shook my head.
“Not yet,” I said.
“I could put the question a little different,” Bob said.
“I’ll tell you as soon as I know something. Right now all I have is suspicion.”
“I could still put the question a little different.”
“Please give me some room,” I said. “If it turns out there’s a collar, I promise you’ll get it.”
Anderson didn’t say anything.
“And I pay for the pie,” I said.
“Bribing an officer?” he said.
“You bet,” I said.
“Coffee, too,” he said.
“Sure thing.”
“Too rich to turn down,” he said.
He took a card from his shirt pocket and gave it to me.
“You get something conclusive, you call me first.”
“Unless I can’t,” I said.
“You don’t bend a hell of a lot, do you?”
“No more than I have to,” I said.
I gave him my most enticing smile. Nothing wrong with feminine wiles. Maybe I should bat my eyes.
Chapter 40
I showed the pictures of Kevin Humphries to Millicent. It was a head-and-shoulders shot, a little grainy from being enlarged, but still clear enough for identification. He was wearing a gray tuxedo with black velvet lapels and a ruffled yellow tuxedo shirt with pearl studs. His hair was longish and his neck looked strong. Millicent wrinkled her nose.
“God, who’s that?” she said.
“I was hoping you might recognize him,” I said.
“Him? Ugh.”
“Why ‘ugh’?”
“He’s such an Italian Stallion.”
“I don’t think he’s Italian.”
“Well you know, he’s so hey-let’s-have-a-couple-brewskis.”
“Low-class?”
“Yeah, and so macho man.”
“How can you tell all that from the picture?”
“I don’t know, I just can.”
“Like an ink blot,” I said.
“What?”
“You know, those tests where they show you an ink blot? Ask you what it looks like?”
She shook her head.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I assume you don’t know him.”
“No. Am I supposed to?”
“He’s a plumber,” I said. “Worked once at your house.”
“I don’t pay any attention to plumbers,” Millicent said.
“I was more wondering if your mother did.”
“My mother? A plumber?”
Rosie had a half-chewed tennis ball which she was pushing around the floor in hopes that I might be inspired to throw it for her so she could chase it. She pushed it under the chair by my feet and looked at me. I sighed and picked it up and rolled it down the length of the floor. Rosie dashed after it, skidding on the rug by the television set as she went.